cajunrose Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 We need to put new floors in our new home..the entire 2300 sf. My husband wants to put a light colored Pergo. I'm concerned about that. I am reading bad reviews on it. The bathrooms are divided into two parts..the part with the water is already ceramic tile so it wouldn't be there. He wants to do the kitchen and laundry area too. He also considered the vinyl planks that look like wood but I didn't like how it felt like plastic (because it is..lol). Is there a beter brand we can go with? Steer clear altogether? My husband put down wood floors in this house and it hasn't worn all that well. I don't want ceramic or carpet. My husband is under the impression that you can see the joints with something so that they aren't as bad in the water areas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 I have maple hardwoods on the main floor of my daylight basement and I love them. This last year, when we finished off our basement, I was really torn on what to do. I have 3 teens and two cats and felt that carpet would take too much of a beating and hardwoods would be too expensive. We had heard about the noise issue with laminate, but I went with a Dupont laminate that looks like wide planks of pine. We love it and we get so many compliments on it. So far, I can't think of a single negative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cajunrose Posted December 8, 2012 Author Share Posted December 8, 2012 Where do you get Dupont planks? What have you heard about noise issues? I'm sensitive to weird noises and textures too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 I once had laminate in the kitchen and my legs hurt every time I stood for very long preparing meals. I think some laminates look nice, but I do not like the sound of them or how hard they are. They are, however, very durable. The vinyl planks can also look nice. They do feel like vinyl, but would also be easier on your legs when standing for long periods of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brilliant Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 We have some laminate flooring in our house. I don't like it...it looks cheap, and I think it must have been cheap because it seems to scratch easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stayseeliz Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Our last house had pergo in the kitchen. It looked nice but dented easily if something was dropped on the floor. I would go with commercial grade pergo next time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joker Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 We put laminate through the whole house, except for bathrooms, this year and really like it. We have had no noise issue but went with a thick laminate and put down pads. It can be hard on the feet, but any hardwood can be. I have a nice rug in the kithcen sink/stove area where I do most of my standing and it's been fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swellmomma Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 My office and bedroom are done in wood laminate I love them. My kitchen, bathroom and entrance are done in linoleum that looks like wood laminate. I hate it and hope to save up enough money to switch them over to actual laminate, as well as the livingroom, backroom and kids rooms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Rat Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 I love laminate for smaller areas. We have laminate in the boys' bedrooms. We buy our flooring through Lumber Liquidators. I'm blanking on the brand of our laminate but we used a cheaper product around $1.99 a sq. ft. I chose a lighter cherry color. They were super easy to install. We did each room 12x12ish in a day including tearing out old carpeting, cleaning, prepping, laying the floor, and installing new baseboards. I'd say it's a 4 of 10 on the difficulty scale. We chose not to install laminate flooring in the main living area and hallway because laminate does echo and we have 2 boys. At the time they were 3 and 7. We decided on an engineered bamboo with a glue down method. We installed it ourselves. It was a little more expensive and a little more difficult to install. 3 of us took 12 hours to lay the floor. It took a couple more days for the floor to dry and to do the finish work, but we had thresholds to deal with and weird cuts on the baseboards. I love both flooring for different reasons. The laminate has held up very well. There is only one ding after 5 years. It was made by a large trophy falling from a high shelf. The bamboo is a lighter wood so it does scratch easier but I love how it cleans up. It does have scratches after 6 years but I'm still very happy with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incognito Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 We have a fair bit of laminate. It is quite durable. Do not buy the cheapest stuff out there. The wood laminate we have is quite cold in the wintertime. I personally prefer the vinyl plank flooring with the tile look. We have that in some of our house as well. It is warmer, very easy to install, and hides dog hair better. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GWOB Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 Call me a snob, but I hate laminate. Hate it. I have vinyl in my kitchen, but I detest the fake wood look. Perhaps I am spoiled by living in a 100-year-old house with original hardwood (recently renovated) floors, but I despise walking on fake wood. If you have no texture issues, laminate is great. If anyone has texture issues, laminate just may be a nightmare. I truly wished I loved it, as it is durable and cheap. I just cannot stand it. My mil has laminate wood floors in her kitchen and walking across them is the equivalent of walking across nails, but I have issues ;). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoot Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 We had Pergo put throughout our downstairs several years ago. Personally, I'm not a fan at all. It's freezing cold in the winter, it's loud, and it NEVER gets clean. Dust bunnies accumulate everywhere no matter how often I sweep or vacuum and it leaves horrible streaks no matter how or what I use to mop. It seems to be holding up just fine but I really wish we had gone with carpet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cindy in FL. Posted December 9, 2012 Share Posted December 9, 2012 We have laminate in the school room. You can definitely tell the difference when you walk from the hardwood onto the laminate. The feel and the sound are not the same. It sounds plasticky, if that makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cajunrose Posted December 10, 2012 Author Share Posted December 10, 2012 Thanks for the opinions. We are either going with Laminate (thicker, higher quality and good padding) or vinyl that looks like 'wood'. We HATE carpet and can't afford hardwoods right now. I'm sooooo torn as to what to do. I do have texture problems...but my choices that would work with that are quite limited. Flooring is such a hard choice!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We have pergo in the dining half of our kitchen and in our schoolroom. I'd prefer real hardwood, but the pergo is not terrible. (We actually have real hardwood, like really old original hardwood, under the pergo, but we're not sure what shape it's in, and it's hard to justify ripping out perfectly good pergo to see hardwood that may well be in bad shape.) They put it in before we moved here, so it's at least six years old, and it still looks really good. And we are NOT gentle on it at all, not by a long shot. I vacuum, rather than sweep it, most of the time, and when it needs to be mopped, it cleans up really nicely and easily. My kitchen half of the kitchen has linoleum in it, and I hate that with a passion, as it's really hard to clean because it has a texture to it that traps dirt. Pergo's not the best thing for a floor that could get wet easy, though, so it's maybe not the right thing for the kitchen (or I'd have insisted upon replacing the lino with pergo -- might still do that). Yes, it's cold in the winter, but so is the linoleum, and so is the hardwood that we have in one of the rooms. In one of our other houses, we put the DIY hardwood, and it looked nice too. It fastens together a lot like pergo, IIRC. We only lived with it for a couple of years, but it was a good option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We have laminate on the first floor of our house, except in the family room. I really wanted wood floors, but thought they would be too expensive, so we got the laminate. Afterwards, we did some calculations and realized we spent more on the laminate than we would have on wood. (We were building our home and had so many decisions to make, we were on overload.) Anyway, in the end, it has worked out very well. I let my kids ride their trikes and push toys in the house when they were little and there are literally no marks or scrapes on the floor. They still look like new over 10 years later. My husband used a very thick rubbery insulation to help with the sound and we have since put in large area rugs. Honestly, I still prefer the look of wood, but I think the laminate was a more practical choice for us at the time. There are different qualities of laminate, though, so that's something to consider. When my husband refinished our basement, he bought some cheap stuff at Costco and we didn't use the rubber insulation and I don't like the noise they make or how they look nearly as much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracy in Ky Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We have laminate in our classroom. I love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurie4b Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We have Pergo everywhere in the house except the kitchen and baths. It looks beautiful, has worn well, and is easy to clean. We're very happy with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2girls4us Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We have lived in a few houses with real hardwood floors, but the house we are in now has laminate. I definitely prefer real wood. The laminate just can't compare to the real thing (for both look and feel). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterflymommy Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 My parents put pergo down in the house I grew up in and regretted it terribly. It has a tacky, too-shiny, plastic look to it, and when it scratches those scratches are there forever, unlike wood that can be sanded down. When we were house hunting for our current house, if a house had pergo in even one room I wouldn't consider it unless there was real wood underneath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenDaisies Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Don't get Pergo. It's terrible, but not all laminate is terrible. Don't get the cheapest stuff either. We have laminate in our basement and sand to finish in the rest of our house. While freshly finished wood is better looking, you can't beat the durability of a good laminate. I love the laminate in my basement - it's easy to clean, and I don't panic when something spills on the floor. Be picky. There are so many choices in laminate. You can find something that looks like wood and something with a texture you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 Hate the texture and the echoey sound. Also, research about how it will work in high humidity areas/wet areas. I believe that water can ruin it making it buckle, so think twice about installing it in a bathroom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dory Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We have laminate throughout the house and gets compliments regularly on it. We used a rubber underlay and that had added a lot of cushion to it and reduced any sound. I would NEVER put it in a kitchen again though. Accidents involving water are always going to happen at some point in the kitchen and laminate doesn't handle water at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We had wood laminate in a rental years ago and you can't get it wet. It buckled when the sink pipes burst. It looked awful and was weird to stand on. They replaced the entire kitchen when we moved out. So bathrooms would be a bad idea too. Why not tile in the kitchen/bathrooms? It's really ideal b/c of the potential water/spill issues. Put the laminate everywhere else. It was easy to swiffer but personally if I had the money I would just do wood floors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 I don't like them at all. And while they may be cheaper initially, you cannot refinish them like hardwood floors, so eventually you'd need to replace if you get damage. With wood floors, you sand them down and refinish, and they are brand new. Also, if you ever want to consider resale, wood floors definitely increase value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 We had laminate put in several years ago because we thought it would be more durable. We chose a very high end laminate, and have had no problems. Our neighbors went with the type sold by Costco, and it already needs to be replaced, but ours looks new. We have dogs, rough kids, and we are not gentle on our floor! I would not put it on a kitchen or bathroom though. To clean it, I vacuum without the brush, then use glass cleaner or vinegar and water. No streaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Since so many people have said not to put it in the kitchen or bathroom, I'll just chime in and say we have it in both of those areas. We've had overflows from the dishwasher and have never had a problem with the floors in the 12 years we've had them. The kind we used did require you to glue the seams though, so maybe that is why water does not damage it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reya Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Pergo was in the kitchen when we moved in. I was concerned, but it's held up to the kids GREAT for the last 5 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeschoolMamaOfTwo Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 I really think it depends on the type you get. In our last house, we went with cheap laminate, and you could tell it was cheap laminate after a bit. I wouldn't do that again. However, when we moved into this house, we chose laminate again, but a higher quality, single plank laminate and we have been very happy with it. It looks great, is durable, and isn't loud or extra hard or anything. Still easy to clean. I would get this type again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljenn Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Our laminate floors looked great but dented sooooo easily. Hubby put down a step stool right in front of the fridge, and the feet had fallen off. He moved the step stool back and forth a bunch of times before he realized the floor was denting every time. It was awful, and looked terrible. Neither one of us wants laminate anymore! Ugh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnificent_baby Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 We put in laminate wood (not Pergo brand but similar), and while it was beautiful, it was very expensive. It also got permanent grooves in it from people sliding their chairs out from a table while still sitting in them. I wouldn't recommend this type of flooring, but then again this was nearly 10 years ago and perhaps they are more durable now. We did have one type of kitchen flooring in a previous home that I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED. It was faux tile, I think the brand was Armstrong. It was the most durable flooring we have ever owned. It's large, thick tiles that piece together, and look very much like real ceramic.The floor always looked clean, very comfortable to walk on, and held up beautifully to heavy traffic. If I were building, I'd choose this in a heartbeat. Have you considered just having your existing wood floor refinished or just a new coat of finish applied? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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